The hall was filled with excitement as we watched Naina open the 2023 AVPN conference. The underlying theme this year, from my perspective, is collaboration.

As the old saying goes: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

It is in this spirit that AVPN’s first-ever pooled fund was born. And Solve Education!(SE!) is honored to be one of the six grantees of this trust-based funding, supported by Micron Foundation, Lenovo Foundation, XTX Markets, BHP, and Chevron.

For the grantees who are doing impactful work on the ground, this unrestricted grant has been significant, especially in the ways listed below:

1. Efficiency

Instead of completing multiple lengthy grant applications and due diligence processes, we just needed to go through one in-depth process with AVPN. And AVPN already understood the context and localized nuances where we work, making the process smoother.

This frees up resources for lean organizations like SE!, to spend more time in the field, working on the communities that we serve.

2. Agility

When working in the field, anything can happen. During covid, we (SE!) can’t disregard our communities’ bare necessities, like food. The unrestricted funding allows us to help address the communities’ needs, and it turns out that by feeding our communities, we have achieved remarkable learning outcomes in the communities, hitting >1M lessons completed on our platforms.

Unrestricted funding allows us to think on our feet and pivot when necessary to have the desired impact.

3. More impact

The STEM fund grantees have shown models that work, and the next step is scaling.

Scaling is not for the faint-hearted. Because going into different geographic locations, demographics, etc., means that there will be lots of learning and adjustments required to make things work. Hence scaling is a resource-intensive process, where collaborative philanthropy helps support by pulling resources together.

SE! is very honored to be part of this cohort, as we managed to scale>10M lessons completed on our platforms – and we are ready for more!

Together, we still have a lot of challenges to overcome, like gender equality, youth empowerment, environment, etc. I look forward to more collaborative efforts to come!

Janine Teo, Chief Executive Officer, Solve Education!